Black and White
by indelibility
Summary: Dark Angel AU. In a world where the Black Organization's members are humans descended from fallen angels, Shiho Miyano is held captive. She's intelligent and capable from a young age- but what will she do when she finally escapes from the organization's clutches?
1. Prologue

So, hey there! This is my first fanfic for Detective Conan! I've thought about writing this piece for a long time, and I hope you enjoy it! If you do, please leave a review! :) Flames are definitely welcomed as well- constructive criticism doubly so.

The pairing is eventually Conan/Ai or Shinichi/Shiho...yea. Well, we'll just see how it turns out. This first chapter in written in first person, but I will probably be alternating between first and third.

Warning: Possible violence, massive AU, possible OOC (I sure hope not- but bear in mind that this first chapter shows some scenes where Shiho is still a little girl and hasn't learned to control her emotions yet)

Thank you and enjoy your read!

DC does not belong to me.

* * *

In one of my earliest memories, I am being taught how to swim.

Rough hands pushed me under chlorinated pool water and I fought for a useless moment, thrashing wildly, my arm and leg muscles tightening with the sudden cold. The will to fight left me as quickly as it came; my eyes closed once again as the cold darkness enveloped me. And then, there was sudden light. I coughed; once, twice, gasping for oxygen, the smell of pool water sharp in my nose and salty in my mouth.

Someone was shaking me.

I blinked and opened my eyes, squinting in the harsh sunlight, spots of darkness in my vision.

"Sherry!" A man's voice growled, rough with impatience. "Fight! Don't just go limp! Do you hear me?" He continued his tirade for a few seconds, then shook me again when I didn't respond.

I was dunked into water again, just as quickly as I had been pulled out. Once again I tried to fight the hands holding me, escape from their violent grasp, and once again I surrendered within the course of a few minutes or so. He pulled me out of the water again, shook me as he would a bedraggled cat, and pushed me back in.

The process repeated for several times, but suddenly, the man seemed to lose his patience. With a growl of annoyance, he forcefully threw me into the pool.

Without the usual hands holding me, I splashed into the middle of the deep pool and tried to breath- I immediately ingested a mouthful of water. Spitting it out with a stream of bubbles, I opened my eyes to find myself underwater. A few seconds later, my eyes stung and my throat burned for air. _Air! Air!_ Finally, with some unknown sense of self-preservation that I had never known before, I dug deep into my mind, into the well of power that I could never quite reach, and pulled.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, black dots exploded and my vision was flooded with light.

At the same time, I rocketed out of the water with a surprised yelp and took in several deep lungfuls of air. Landing roughly on the side of the pool, I looked up with all the satisfaction of a little kid who had just completed her task.

"Good." The man grunted grudgingly, and then forced me up onto my feet. I staggered a little, dizzy from my little stunt. However, I held onto my sense of balance and looked up again, expecting something more- maybe a reward, or something?

"Do it again." The man said, and my stomach sank, heavy with despair and the pool water that I had drunk.

"Again!" The man repeated himself, and he pushed me into the pool. Slipping, I banged my head on the side of the pool deck and darkness descended on me. The last thing I heard was his vicious cursing.

At that time, I was only three.

~O-o-o-o-o-O~

Before the human race had ever been there to create countless cities, societies, and organizations, the fallen angels had been there to guide them. Cast away from the highest order of the Archangels by an angry God, the angels had no choice but to leave the heavens. The angels fell from the skies, landing in many scattered places around the world. There, the angels first encountered humans, in their rough, uncivilized form. Eventually, the angels integrated themselves into human society and they interbred, resulting in humans that possessed gifts not ordinarily available to mankind.

Over the centuries, angel blood in humans thinned. People all around the world still possessed angel blood; however, it was diluted and offered none of its ordinary power. But should you walk out onto a street in any place in the world…say, Tokyo, Japan, you would still see the mark that angel blood has left on the humans- a pair of sharp, sapphire eyes there, a tint of dark purple in black hair over there, the extraordinary, unusual intelligence in someone's gaze, or the remarkable agility with which someone moves.

What no one knows now, though, in society, is that there is still an organization- an organization of angels gone bad, demons with darkened hearts and their sights set on immortality and ascension to the golden heavens, to rule once again in the realm in the sky. These people scoured the earth for the people with the purest angel blood…using their countless abilities and intelligence to gain control of mankind.

In the end, their ultimate plan was to use humankind as the victim to obtain their ransom- being once again allowed in heaven's light.

~O-o-o-o-o-O~

In another memory, in another one of the lessons that they have forced me to learn, over and over, I am dodging gunshots.

I was standing in a large room, filling with moving targets. The lights were half-dimmed and I was disoriented, having been pulled out of bed to stand here and wait…for something. They hadn't told me.

The large crack of a gunshot shattered me out of my thoughts and I dodged left, right, ducking and spinning. Another bullet was coming! And another! And…I was moving too slow…I tried to jump away but-

"Ow!" A half-scream burst from my throat and I stopped in my tracks. I barely even noticed as the gunshots stopped echoing around me.

An agonizing pain bloomed in my right shoulder; shaking, I dropped down to the floor and instinctively grabbed the wound, looking in horror at my mangled shoulder. The movement only increased the waves of pain washing over me and I let out an involuntary whimper. Feeling dizzy at the bright red flow of blood (a color I would later come to hate), I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

"Suppress your emotions." A feminine voice murmured reprovingly from behind me. I did not have to look to know who was speaking to me. It was Vermouth, (young and vain back then- and _still _young and vain) her long silver-blond hair curling past her shoulders. When I turned to glance at her expression, I was met with disappointment.

"I know." I sighed through teeth clenched in pain.

"Very well." Vermouth snapped her fingers. I bit my lip in dread, sensitive ears catching a series of resounding clicks as guns were reloaded and fingers were set at the trigger.

"No! My wound-!" I finally voiced my objections.

She looked down at me coolly. "You won't die." She said pointedly. "You are nearly pureblood."

"Yes, but-" I stammered.

She nodded towards the darkness, and the guns fired.

I was too slow to escape. Pain erupted in several places on my body as bullets grazed past me, and I hit the floor and stayed down. Vermouth bent down and eyed me dispassionately. "She's stunned." She called out, "Get some medical help."

Again, the welcome darkness claimed me, and I faded away.

~O-o-o-o-o-O~

"What is your name?" Gin asked me.

"Shiho." I said.

He drew his gun and fired; I clutched at my right shoulder, the same one that had been injured last year on that training field, with Vermouth as my instructor. This time, however, I kept my composure, standing straight and tall. I stared him squarely in the eyes, even though he was several feet taller than me and an imposing sight. Internally, though, I was shaking like a leaf in the wind- he was ten years older than me and far less gentle than Vermouth had been with me.

A slow merciless smirk spread across his face. "What is your name?"

"Shiho Miyano." I said stubbornly.

He fired again. I reiterated that my name was Shiho Miyano. He fired again. And again…and again.

Finally, he stopped and looked down at me from where I had been reduced to crouching on the floor to cover my injuries.

"What is your name now?" He asked, enunciating each word, making sure that any forbidden reply would be met with drastic consequences.

Stomach heavy with defeat, I looked away. "Sherry." I whispered, the name bitter on my lips and tongue.

"Correct. Sherry." Gin put his gun away and turned to leave the room. "Don't think about asking the medics for assistance; they won't give me any."

"Sherry isn't my name." I said under my breath; Gin paused at the doorway of the room.

"Your name is Sherry." Gin said slowly. He smiled coldly, turning back to look at me. Under his frozen gaze, I trembled with fear.

"No." I muttered.

"Your name is Sherry, or you have no name at all." Gin shut the door gently behind him. The chill I felt as the lock clicked had nothing to do with the breeze coming in through the open window.

~O-o-o-o-o-O~

Thirteen years later, Professor Agasa would find a little girl in an oversized lab coat and bring her into his house, where she awakened (in shock) to find a cup of hot chocolate and a pair of large eyes framed by round spectacles staring at her.

She had no name.


	2. Chapter 1: Rebirth

~O-o-o-o-o-O~

_If only there was such a thing as real heaven._

~O-o-o-o-o-O~

"Who are you?" She asked.

"Professor Agasa." The man paused, then smiled in a friendly way, so different from the ice-cold smirk of Gin's or the indifferent remarks from Vermouth, and her other associates.

"Agasa-hakase." She tested out the word and readied herself for the questions that she was sure would be coming- _Who are you? Why are you here? Why were you wearing that lab coat? Why were you collapsed in front of Kudo-san's house? _The possible questions echoed in her mind, but she showed nothing on her face, save for polite gratitude and mild curiosity.

After all these years of training, her Poker Face was probably better than the Phantom Thief's.

While she waited for his reply she observed her surroundings. The room she was in was airy, large, with high ceilings and cold fluorescent lights. She was currently situated on a couch, with a warm blanket draped over her wet lab coat- Agasa must have done it when he had found her, she supposed, glancing the Professor again.

Agasa smiled, indicating a mug of hot chocolate on the coffee table. "Have some hot chocolate?" She was shaken out of her reverie at his voice, and looked to where he was pointing.

"Sure." She replied, cautiously reaching for the mug. Holding it to her lips, she pretended to drink but instead inhaled, smelling the drink. Her keen nose detected nothing out of the ordinary, but all the same she held the warm mug in her cold hands and didn't drink.

When she looked up again, she was surprised to find that he had left the room. The lights dimmed after a few minutes, when she didn't move. Tired, she leaned against the couch, feeling uncomfortable in her wet clothes.

When Agasa-hakase finally returned, he was bearing a teapot. Slowly, he poured himself a cup of tea, and then sat onto the couch across from her. The lights above returned to their old intensity; alert, she sat up and eyed him from across the coffee table.

She waited for the inevitable questions.

"What is your name?" Professor Agasa asked.

She licked her suddenly dry lips. "I don't have one. Not anymore." She admitted. Once upon a time, she had been Miyano Shiho, as a tiny baby- pure and innocent. Then she was Sherry, the criminal scientist, member of the Black Organization…and now, she was a young girl, barely seven, new and unformed.

_Or_, she thought dryly, _as unformed as a seven-year-old can be._

And she remembered the words, spoken long ago, when the name Sherry had been beaten into her, over and over again (she had checked- the scars were gone, now that she was seven again). _"Your name is Sherry, or you have no name at all."_

"Well, that's fine!" Professor Agasa leaned back and laughed heartily. Against her cautious nature, she felt herself warming up to this strange, eccentric old man. "We'll just have to create a new name for you, won't we?"

And the questions continued.

~O-o-o-o-o-O~

Conan Edogawa yawned, slumping against his desk at Teitan Elementary School. Bored, he listened halfheartedly to the various exclamations of other kids in the room.

"Did you see the latest episode of Kamen Yaiba?"

"Yesterday's math homework was so hard!"

_I wonder what Ran is doing right now?_ Conan thought as he tuned the various voices out. _I wonder if she misses me…_

"Conan-kun!" A familiar voice called, directly in Conan's ears.

Conan jerked up in his seat, looking at the little girl. It was Ayumi Yoshida, one of the few who had bravely tried to befriend him- even though he had kept to himself and tried to discourage her advances.

"Conan-kun?" She repeated.

"What?" He asked.

"Didn't you hear?" She was looking at him anxiously, waiting for his reply. "There's a new transfer student coming today! The first one since you, Conan-kun!"

"That's great." Conan replied. As Ayumi continued to make small talk and Genta and Mitsuhiko joined them, he sighed, slouching again and resisting the urge to put his head down on the desk and doze off. Instead, he answered all of Ayumi's questions and made an effort to remain polite.

In the back of his mind he wondered: _Hmmm…what would Ran be doing now…? Would she talk to another guy? Or…?_

His random thoughts drifted to the Black Organization, and he subconsciously clenched his fists. _They'll regret the day that they did this to me._ He promised himself, and sat up straighter to reply to Mitsuhiko's question.

~O-o-o-o-o-O~

In her mind, she pictured the image in the Black Organization's files, in the list of potential enemies.

_Sharp blue eyes, somewhat messy black hair, and a self-assured grin. An unforgettable face. _She concluded; reaching the classroom door. The teacher opened the door for her and she stepped in, murmuring a soft thanks.

She stepped into the large, airy classroom and scanned the faces of the children, while the teacher introduced her to the class.

"This is Ai Haibara." The teacher said- (what was her name again? Ai never bothered remembering unless they were important names), and gestured to Ai. An eruption of exclamations ensued; the boys in the class stared at her with open-mouthed surprise- probably at her foreign features, though she _was_ half-Japanese.

"Wow, she's so kawaii! I hope I…"

"Let's be friends with her! She looks lonely…"

"I wonder what she…"

_There he is!_ She hadn't moved a bit since she had stepped inside the classroom, and she had finally found him- the only kid in the class who wasn't staring at her with rapt attention. He was sitting with his head to the side, chin supported by his hand; his glasses slightly lopsided and his expression bored. She concentrated on him for one moment, narrowing her eyes, and her vision switched from color-filled to black and white. Only the bored kid was surrounded by a glowing color- a deep, dark blue the same hue as his sharp eyes. _Ha!_ She thought, letting her color vision resume. _I've got you now, Kudo-san._ She let her gaze drift to the empty seat beside Kudo-san- _good, that just makes it easier for me._

"She can sit with me!" Ai eyed the plump boy who had spoken and made a decision.

Striding right past the boy (who had a slightly crestfallen look on his face), she set her backpack on the empty table next to Kudo-san's.

"Nice to meet you." She murmured, ignoring the surprised look on his face. Her own smug amusement remained unseen; she made sure that the only expression that Kudo-san could see on her face was polite disinterest.

"Y-yeah." He replied, slightly shaken.

The class began, and the students quieted down. She could feel his intent stare; he was probably trying to pick her apart- set a label for her, the way so many detectives did. He was using his powers of observation, but unlike other people, she wouldn't yield her secrets as easily. _Sorry, Kudo-san. It doesn't matter how hard you stare- you won't be learning anything new about me unless I want you to._

Ducking her head and pretending that she was preparing to take notes, Ai turned her face away to hide her smirk.

~O-o-o-o-o-O~

"Who," The Boss asked rhetorically, "are the most dangerous people in the world?" He was sitting at the head of the table, his upper body bathed in shadow, a result of the dimly lit room. Even if a member tried to look closely at his features, they would not be able to, not unless they had extraordinarily keen eyes, and maybe not even then. This was intentional on the Boss's part; intimidation was one of the tactics that he had learned early among the humans.

But though he had once learned with humans and lived with humans, the Boss wasn't a human. He wasn't even an angel anymore- he had been corrupted to the point that if someone were to cut open his chest and reveal his heart, everyone in the organization would agree that it would be black.

The air in the room was heavy and choking; several members in the room shifted nervously in their seats, waiting for the Boss's next words.

"Children." The Boss answered his own question, slamming his fist onto the table. "Children are the most dangerous in the whole world. Does anyone know why?" Without waiting for a reply, he continued his rant. "Children are dangerous because they have _potential_. Any young child can be trained to be the next master in any subject- we have seen for ourselves what happened with Sherry. And…if we should search out the angel-blooded children among these pitiful humans, we will have the perfect army!"

The members of the organization sat in silence, pondering his words. The Boss nodded to Vermouth. "I want you to have plans written up by next week's meeting- deliver them to me before then. Do not be late."

She nodded, and the Boss got out of his chair and left the room.

~O-o-o-o-o-O~

"Alright. Who are you?" Conan demanded. He had herded Ai Haibara to a private area where they wouldn't be overheard; he had been itching to ask her this since class had started- but he hadn't had a chance.

She merely smirked, then turned around and faced him. "What do you mean?" Ai asked him, a confused look on her face.

Conan stared at her in disbelief. "What do you mean- 'what do you mean'? You know what I'm talking about- you're not a normal little girl."

Ai stared at him, frowning in thought. "So, does that mean that you're not a normal little boy?" She smiled sweetly at him, randomly kicking little rocks on the ground towards him. One flew toward Conan's foot, hitting his shin, and he winced.

Conan wasn't fooled for a second by Ai's innocent expression. "Tell me." He insisted, grabbing one of her arms and keeping her from moving away. "Who are you?" He stuck his face close to hers; looking in her eyes for any trace of sadness, blankness- the unusual intelligence of an adult in the body of a child. There was nothing- Ai's eyes were completely natural, innocent and sparkling. Stunned by this observation, Conan let her go.

Ai moved away immediately, grasping her arm and glaring at him. "What are you doing?" She demanded. "Why did you do that?"

Stunned by the realization that he had been wrong, Conan stared at Ai's retreating figure, a frown on his face- but he didn't know that if he had watched Ai as he let her go, he would have seen blankness immediately descend on her face; her mask dropping out of place, the sparkle and innocence leaving her eyes. But Conan hadn't looked when he had let her go, and so he didn't know that he had been right.

"Well then, good-bye, I guess." Ai said, looking back at the baffled detective.

Conan blinked, returning to his senses. "Sure, and sorry for shaking you. I thought you were someone else."

Ai smirked as she walked on, the sun shining bright above her.

* * *

Hey guys! I'm VERY sincerely sorry for the late update- life caught up to me. ^^ I hope you enjoyed the chapter- and please make my day by reviewing. Thank you! ^^

OH yea...and it has come to my attention that Ai would be about 8 right now...xD Whatever. I like her younger, I think I'll keep her this age- and she'll be closer in age to Conan as well. I hope that's okay with everyone? Mhmmm? Good. Thank you.


End file.
